Caleb
by Madam Callisto
Summary: "I am the snake in the Garden of Eden and the whisper in the ears of sinners. I am sin itself, Caleb, and I'm here tonight because I've come to ask for your help." The ex-preacher/serial killer meets his new boss.


The church reeked of tacky perfume and sweat, made so much worse by the humid heat in the cramped building that Caleb could all but taste it on his tongue-not that he really paid it much heed. Even as the words of a God he did not remotely care to believe in passed through his lips, he found his eyes wondering to meet those of the non-too-innocent preachers' daughter, and to occasionally lower to take in the sight of her excessively large breasts not quite contained by the low fold of her blue Sunday dress. It took more than a small amount of self-control for Caleb to keep himself in character and not blow his cover right then in there in front of the half of the Pennsylvania town. He sighed aloud, knowing well enough how to work this into part of his act for his crowd, which consisted of rows of sweating men and women currently leaning at the edge of their seats like they were about to dive off of them into a pool.

Caleb wasn't entirely sure what he'd been saying for the past two hours (and he was reasonably sure his crowd didn't either) but from the lights in their eyes he assumed it must have at least _sounded _very profound. This was his first time delivering a sermon for this particular audience, but the crowd was extremely responsive to him this evening. The girl in the blue dress ran her tongue across her top lip slowly.

It was definitely time to wrap things up.

Caleb cleared his throat. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies..." His hands gripped tightly at the wooden pedestal before him and he quoted a little faster at the look in the girl in the blue dresses eyes. "..a-living-sacrifice-holy-acceptable-unto-God-which-is-your-reasonable-service-Amen."

Yadda, yadda, yadda, Caleb thought, rolling his eyes internally. Regardless, this evening's audience jumped to their feet to give him a solid two minute standing ovation during which he shook hands with several of the Churches new visitors and biggest donors. A few hands patted him on the back and he smiled back to their owner, throwing out empty words of blessing that he in no means meant. He stopped abruptly when he reached the preachers daughter.

"Evenin', miss." He said with a polite nod. He didn't bother to hide his smile from her. "Did you enjoy the sermon?"

"Very much, Brother Caleb." She said. The presence of a faint blush on her cheeks was unmistakable.

How Caleb adored the naivety of young women.

She cleared her throat. "I did have a few…questions I wish to ask you about in person...if that's alright with you." The sweet innocent tone to her voice does nothing to stir Caleb's desires but he went along with it nonetheless. The knife tucked beneath his shirt was begging to come out.

"I would be glad to. Would you care to meet me back here? Around ten, after things have cleared up here if that's not too late for you-"

"No, that'll be perfect. I'll see you then." Her previously innocent smile has now fully become something blatantly whorish.

Caleb nodded and told her he'd look forwards to seeing her later, silently wondering which dumpster he'd dumping her body in later that night.

* * *

><p>Jessica, as he now knew the preacher's daughters name to be, sat herself down in the front row of the empty church, crossing her legs carefully so that her dress slid slowly up her thighs.<p>

"So, Brother Caleb, I believe you owe me a lesson." The tone of her voice was one of a practiced slut, Caleb thought to himself.

"Oh, do I?" His voice was thick with amusement as he moved to stand in front of her. "Well I guess I do have one or two things to teach you my child." Caleb drew his hands behind his back.

"I'm all ears." She said, cross her arms in a way that showed off more cleavage that he'd previously thought possible. He sighed aloud to himself.

"There is, however, probably no chance of you getting to use the lesson you'll learn from me." He drew his knife from behind his back, pressing it lightly against a vein in her neck as she tried to get up.

Her eyes widened as she began to understand her position. "What the fuck are you-" She was cut off by the press of his knife against her skin and flinched

"Watch your tongue, my little whore. We can't very well have any of that kind of language in God's house now can we?"

"Go to hell!"

"If there is hell I assure you I'll eagerly board the first train there." He lowered his blade slowly, letting it gently cut its way down until it hovered just above her heart. She flinched slightly away as the blade broke skin. "Seems much more exciting than Heaven anyway. More of my type of people, you know?." The girl yelped as the cold tip of his blade circled the lightly tanned skin of her bosom. "But I promise I'll save you a seat." He winked at the girl, soaking in the way her thick-headed bravery was beginning to fade into actual fear.

"What do you want from me?" She asked nervously. "If you wanted me then you didn't need to use a knife.." She was trying to disarm him with allure of her body.

"I assure you that your pretty little meat sack isn't the tiniest bit appealing to me. I'm just here to do what should be done to every last of member of your sex-" Jessica gasped as the knife scrapped her skin again, this time drawing blood. She tried to get up and Caleb shoved her forcefully back down across her back on the wooden bench with next to no effort. "-I'm here to wipe you filthy things off the face of the earth."

"Help! Somebody help me!" She shouted, giving up on seduction. Caleb laughed. All the other preachers had long since gone home.

"I did promise you a lesson didn't I?" Caleb said calmly. "Well here's lesson one: Be born with a Y chromosome."

As Jessica's cries for help dissolved into incoherent wails, Caleb knew his three hour sermon was finally going to pay off.

* * *

><p>One of the best things about the color black was the way it so very neatly hid blood stains.<p>

Caleb groaned aloud as he tossed the blond off of his shoulder and into the half-full dumpster, leaving her to rot with the rest of the foul smelling garbage like the piece of filth she truly was. He smiled to himself, noting how perfectly in-order his clothing looked despite the fact he was soaked rather thoroughly in blood.

"Lovely evening for a murder isn't it?" A strangely familiar voice said behind him.

Caleb jumped. He hadn't any trace of footsteps. He turned to find Jessica, looking exactly as she like not half an hour earlier-skin entirely attached to her body and blue dress with no blood stains to speak of. Caleb tilted his head slightly to the side.

"About as good as any other." He said slowly. "Hey, don't want to point out the obvious but didn't I just kill you, slut?" He asked, pointing with his knife. The girl smiled but it wasn't the same mischievous little whore smile she'd worn before. This was the smile of some wise all-knowing thing looking down its nose at an insect. Caleb shuddered at the pull of her gaze, but not with fear. Still very confused, he smiled back at the girl who was definitely not Jessica.

"Yes, but I thought I might borrow this form." Her voice was even and soft. "If it displeases you there are many other forms I can take."

"No, I think I'm okay with this."

"I'd hope you would be." Not-Jessica said.

Caleb crossed his arms. "I'd take it you aren't a ghost then?"

"No. You hardly see surprised though."

Caleb chuckled softly. "This aint hardly my first encounter with being like yourself."

"I highly doubt you've encountered a being like me before." Even though her voice was calm, Caleb felt a cold shiver run up his spine. Every word the creature spoke was heavy with a kind of unknown darkness that tugged at some primal animalistic part of him and made him want to run away screaming. He was unaware of a single other time in his life when he'd ever actually felt like this.

In the back of his mind, Caleb knew he'd been waiting for this moment his entire life.

"And what exactly _are _you?"

"I am the First."

Caleb raised an eyebrow. "The first...what?"

"The First evil, Brother Caleb. The ageless one as old as the first thought. The dark shadow that has plagued the minds of men for as long as they have had minds with which to be corrupted. I am the snake in the Garden of Eden and the whisper in the ears of sinners. I am sin itself, Caleb, and I'm here tonight because I've come to ask for your help."

Caleb cleared his throat but was otherwise silent for a moment. The First stared quietly at the ex-priest, trying to discern where his thoughts had led him.

"The First Evil was it?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, okay, I'm in." The First beamed with Jessica's face.

"Is that it? No other questions?"

For whatever reason there was only one issue pressing on Caleb's mind. "Will we be killing things?"

"I have no physical form so you will have to do most of the killing. And yes, there will be fairly large amount of it."

"Then I'm in." Caleb said. Everything else was just silly details to be sorted out later. "Where are we headed then?"

"California. Have you ever heard of a town called Sunnydale?"

**END**


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